GigaOM reports that Major League Baseball is expanding support for Apple's Passbook app, announcing that the digital tickets will be accepted at 13 stadiums this season, up from just four last season.

MLB was one of Apple's launch partners for Passbook in September, with mobile tickets accepted by the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals. They are being joined this season by the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A's, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs. Three further teams are due to join, but have not yet been named.

Tickets can be purchased using the free AtBat app and then stored in Passbook.

Not to be outdone, Samsung today announced Samsung Wallet, an Android app which mirrors Passbook's functionality, right down to time- and location-based push notifications. The app is currently a developer-only beta, with the public version launching soon. The Verge reports that Samsung has also signed a deal with MLB, as well as Walgreens, Belly, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com and Lufthansa for the app's launch.

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The company showed off a few features of the new app during its developer keynote, and it's quite clear that Samsung took its design inspiration for Wallet from Apple's Passbook (even down to the icon that Samsung used).

Interestingly, the app will not support near field communications (NFC) payment technology for the time being, despite Samsung's existing partnership with Visa's PayWave service. Samsung says that retailers have so far been reluctant to invest in the additional infrastructure to support NFC payments, making NFC support for Wallet a lower-priority feature.

Samsung does this in every product field: TV's, Appliances, Cellphones - and steal business away from American companies. Sad.

Steals business? How can you steal business if consumers have choice? You must love unions and trade restrictions. Oh damn them for making a better product or equivalent one at cheaper price. We need laws passed to prop up our inferior unsustainable business model.

Apps for Passbook in the UK store - still five. No new ones launched since Starbucks.

Of those five two are American airlines with no significant UK presence.

Obviously it's down to the devs to build these for their clients. I looked into it, it's fairly easy to do using Apple's Passbook API. However, get this - each client I would like to build Passbook integration for needs their own Apple Developer account. If a company was to churn these out for lots of clients, it would be a logistical nightmare for something so mundane. This type of hurdle is surely stifling wider adoption for the smaller businesses.

For my money we need an open API with cross-platform support, i.e, an HTML5 solution. Proprietary things, such as apps, work (for now) as there is a real reason to jump through hoops... revenue and exposure from App store eco-systems, but this type of thing really needs to be open.

Regarding the article, I laughed when I read it. Samsung just have no shame. Innovate you prideless idiots!

Apps for Passbook in the UK store - still five. No new ones launched since Starbucks.

Of those five two are American airlines with no significant UK presence.

I guess you haven't been the Heathrow in a while...pretty big AA presence there. They're also codeshare partner with BA, so again ????

I think Samsung copying passbook shows that Apple's idea has legs. I use it for Starbucks, AA, Sixt (rental cars in Europe), and even my local barber has a website to setup appointments and they allow me to add it to passbook. There is more than just "App-based" passbook. This passbook was sent directly from a website. In this case it was an appointment confirmation, not a payment system, per se, but it was pretty slick. More people should do this!

Well, Samsung definitely didn't copy Forstall's slick presentation that's for sure -- lots of "ums" in that demo and a shadow on the screen. Maybe it's harder to present an app in a professional manner than copy it?

Well, Samsung definitely didn't copy Forstall's slick presentation that's for sure -- lots of "ums" in that demo and a shadow on the screen. Maybe it's harder to present an app in a professional manner than copy it?

Well let's face it.. How can anyone present something professionally when they didn't build it?
Samsung used to be leader, when they made the best LCD panels when everyone else is using CRT.
Now, they are The Leader in copying others - Apple.
shameless..

For sure. When is Apple going to get on the ball and actually do something with PB anyway?

This is the interesting part... the part the Samsung copied was Apple decision to include a KeyRing-like app on it's phones (the Key ring is not new, it's the decision to include it with the phone). It's Samsung typical "fast-follower" model, which is frowned upon in North America, but well accepted, acknowledged and even envied in Asia.

As mention above, what will Apple do with it? How will it monetize, bring it to market, and evolve a business model around it. This can take different initial directions... passes, payments, coupons, etc. And also the go to market strategy is part of solution (by creating new relationships, or partnership with existing services like credit card companies).

Samsung, today, can develop it's own direction and model, but hasn't yet (arguably, neither has Apple)... although it seems like by naming it "Wallet" it's taking a mobile payment direction, but still haven't indicated how it bring it to market.

If the past is an indicator, Samsung will take a "fast-follower" approach, and wait for someone (Google/Apple) to lead the way or even wait for someone to *prove* (not just formulate) a successful model first.